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Old 02-22-2008, 02:48 PM
 
Location: Somewhere in Texas
5,406 posts, read 13,251,475 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW View Post
When I get some time I will look into the Air Quality in New Mexico and write up a little summary for you folks. It will take some time so please be patient.
That is so very nice of you. Thank you so much!!
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Old 02-22-2008, 04:22 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW View Post
When I get some time I will look into the Air Quality in New Mexico and write up a little summary for you folks. It will take some time so please be patient.
Q: Is it be possible to differentiate between different parts of Albuq? Say, NE Heights vs. RR vs. Downtown? Is there even a difference?
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Old 02-23-2008, 11:15 PM
 
Location: San Antonio
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All I can say is when I lived in Houston, it literally hurt to breathe in the summer. It wasn't unusual to feel a searing pain in my lungs on bad air days (and you could SEE when it was bad). In Florida, it was better, but I had problems with shortness of breath some days (think it was the humidity). Been here about 6 weeks now and haven't had any problems breathing at all, even when exercising (and I'm way out of shape).

So the EPA may say ABQ's numbers are bad, but my lungs say our air is good.

BTW, link to EPA's air site:

AIRNow - Home
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Old 02-24-2008, 07:20 AM
 
Location: Somewhere in Texas
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yukon View Post
All I can say is when I lived in Houston, it literally hurt to breathe in the summer. It wasn't unusual to feel a searing pain in my lungs on bad air days (and you could SEE when it was bad). In Florida, it was better, but I had problems with shortness of breath some days (think it was the humidity). Been here about 6 weeks now and haven't had any problems breathing at all, even when exercising (and I'm way out of shape).

So the EPA may say ABQ's numbers are bad, but my lungs say our air is good.

BTW, link to EPA's air site:

AIRNow - Home
Yes, that's a good site. I want to see what AQ it gives in the summer when some places can't breathe because of the humidity and heat.

I know what you mean about a searing pain in one's lungs. I was raised in CA and taking a breath hurt like crazy when the smog was at its worst, sort of like when one gets too much cholorine from swimming. Not good at all.
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Old 02-24-2008, 03:24 PM
 
Location: Abu Al-Qurq
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Albuquerque's air tends to get cleaner the further you get from the river. The particulates tend to form a bit of a "brown cloud" that settles in the valley, and on some winter days, you can actually drive from above down into it.

If you get even further from Albuquerque's "bowl" the air gets even cleaner. The winds finally have a way to push the junk away.

I would venture a guess that now that woodburning in fireplaces has gotten less common that over two-thirds of the particulates come from motor vehicles, and 90% of that from <10% of the vehicles on the road (thank you Sandoval and Valencia counties!)

Also not to be forgotten: forest fires. Our air has been noticeably fouled by fires that are sometimes up to a 2-hour flight away. That is probably a leading contributor to the low-grade dirty air throughout the west.
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Old 02-24-2008, 03:38 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoidberg View Post
Albuquerque's air tends to get cleaner the further you get from the river. The particulates tend to form a bit of a "brown cloud" that settles in the valley, and on some winter days, you can actually drive from above down into it.
Thanks Zoidberg, makes me feel a bit better about the NE Heights...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoidberg View Post
I would venture a guess that now that woodburning in fireplaces has gotten less common... also not to be forgotten: forest fires. Our air has been noticeably fouled by fires that are sometimes up to a 2-hour flight away. That is probably a leading contributor to the low-grade dirty air throughout the west.
Makes sense. Usually our CO detector registers 0, but when we have an indoor [wood] fire it will register a low "27." And that's just one, single pollutant...
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Old 02-25-2008, 07:06 AM
 
Location: Londonderry, NH
41,478 posts, read 59,660,138 times
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among other things the density and distribution of monitoring stations has a lot to do with determining small scale (city wide) air quality. Zoidbergs observations are relevant to this question. I have seen the winter "smog bowl" formed over Denver.

Tim Rankine - sounds like your stove is leaking combustion products (fancy name for smoke) into the inside of your house. Find out why and where and fix it. CO is no joke!
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Old 02-25-2008, 02:00 PM
 
Location: Metromess
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yukon: I know what you mean about Houston's air. The DFW 'Metroplex' is catching up. I haven't felt "a searing pain in my lungs" yet, but August is a horrible month for air quality...at night, the sky is reddish-brown, and it's easy to become short of breath. It's almost as if breathing doesn't do much good. . Albuquerque's air is much better!
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Old 02-25-2008, 04:42 PM
 
1,763 posts, read 5,988,207 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW View Post
Tim Rankin - sounds like your stove is leaking combustion products (fancy name for smoke) into the inside of your house. Find out why and where and fix it. CO is no joke!
Greg, thanks for your concern, but I think we're o.k. I reset the CO detector after the reading of 27 & monitored it for a week, and it remained at zero. I was later browsing online, and apparently, indoor fireplaces often produce very low readings of CO. I'm confident that's where it came from, since we had made a few fires just previous to the reading appearing.

It did make me wonder, though. Although a reading of 27 is low enough not to trip the audible CO alarm, I was surprised to learn that a fireplace could have such an effect on air quality. My thought was that when wildfires are burning all over the west, it's no surprise that NM's air quality suffers. I imagine those wildfires release a lot more than just CO.
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Old 02-25-2008, 08:35 PM
 
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Thumbs up Cool topic!

Love the Airnow homepage! I would suspect in the coming months during monsoon season that pollutants would increase as systems blow particulates (sand) and other pollutants down in the Albuquerque "bowl" valley area... Great discussion btw, and I would love to see a good write-up on this subject if for nothing else than to be better informed...
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